Molly Foley
As a child I was always drawn to soft things, a worn piece of silky ribbon or my dog Abigail’s smooth floppy ear. Still, it took me until my forties to realize that my creativity was best served through weaving and fiber art. Weaving allows my playful and imaginative side free reign to combine fibers, patterns, and colors – the possibilities are literally endless – providing me with the sense of freedom I have spent much of my life searching for. My love of weaving takes many forms including wall hangings, scarves, table runners, and clothing made with the SAORI weaving method. SAORI also helps me to explore deconstruction and reconstruction, using anything from audio tape to old clothing.
The wall hangings I make using the frame looms were given the name Hopefuls by my good friend and gifted Andover musician Sandi Bedrosian after I made a weaving for her to cheer her after a serious injury. I love to create custom pieces to convey a certain energy and my hope is that the playfulness and warmth I feel in creating the Hopefuls shines through and brings joy to their owners.
My love of astrology infuses my work with a sense of magic and wonder. As I’ve explored my own creativity and spirituality, I have found weaving is often used as a metaphor for alchemy. Learning to bring together individual threads into a varied and unique piece, has taught me how to take the disparate and often contradicting parts of myself and fashion them into a unified whole.
My work has been part of the group shows – Chemistry of FiberLAB at LexArts in Lexington, MA, Loom in Essence at JMAC (2020) and Worcester Center for Crafts (2021) in Worcester, MA, and Fantasy Lands at Artless Bastard in De Pere, WI. Finally, I am a member of the Cazimi Collaborative whose public art installations – Andover Weaving: Rebirth Renewal, Time is a Circle, and the upcoming (March 2022) Andover Mending: Healing and Resilience – have provided opportunities for wonder and contemplation along Main Street in Andover, MA.
Website: https://www.mfcreates.com
Instagram: @725Fulton
Email: molly.725fulton@gmail.com
Cazimi Collaborative Website: https://www.cazimicreativecollaborative.com
Instagram: @cazimi.collab
Would you like to try weaving? Molly donated a small loom to learn how to weave. It is part of the Library of Things collection www.mhl.org/library-of-things. Watch Molly teach Gerry Deyermond, Assistant Head of Circulation how to weave using the loom at https://vimeo.com/672480926
Beth Frey Frey Ceramics- display case
About the Artist:
Beth Frey fell in love with clay at age thirteen, and developed a passion for pottery that grew throughout high school and college. As an art major at Swarthmore College she took a variety of classes, but kept coming back to clay, concentrating on both functional vessels and sculptural pieces.
She began her professional career as a gallerist in Boston for many years, working in her family’s art gallery. After moving to Andover and taking care of her two children full-time, in 2019 she set up a ceramics studio in her home to pursue pottery once again.
You can view more of her work at www.freyceramics.com
Artist Statement:
I strive to create pottery that captures and celebrates the beauty of nature. My inspirations are the woods, gardens and beaches that surround me in my native Massachusetts. I love the challenge of combining art and functionality in my work, to create pottery that will be used and cherished for generations.
I begin most of my work on the pottery wheel, and use a variety of techniques to alter, carve and glaze each piece by hand. Hand carving is the most challenging and time-consuming technique for me, but also the most rewarding. It requires intense concentration, and I’m able to channel that into a meditative experience in the studio.